The Good Guide website's turkey rating page.
(Image by Jessi Ziegler)
There’s a new way for consumers to find
out more about the products they buy.
Samara Freemark has the story
of a new online guide that lets you look
up how good products are for you and for
the environment:
Transcript
There’s a new way for consumers to find
out more about the products they buy.
Samara Freemark has the story
of a new online guide that lets you look
up how good products are for you and for
the environment:
The website is called the Good Guide, and it lets consumers get a pretty in-depth look at more than 60,000 foods and household products. The site ranks products by their impacts on health, the environment, and society.
The Good Guide is the brainchild of Dara O’Rourke. He’s a professor of environmental policy at the University of California at Berkley. O’Rourke says consumers don’t have easy access to the information they need to make smart buying decisions.
“What we’re trying to do is bring the best available science, put it in an easy accessible and free format, then get it to people whenever and wherever they make a decision about a product or a company.”
That’s where the Good Guide iphone application comes in. Shoppers can scan barcodes at the store to get instant product information.
That application, and the site, can be found at goodguide.com
A one-size-fits-all phone charger could cut down on the electronic waste generated by cell phones (Photo by Shawn Allee)
That search for the right cell
phone charger should soon become
a thing of the past. Cell phone
makers have agreed to come up with
a universal adaptor. Julie Grant
reports that that could save tons
of landfill space:
Transcript
That search for the right cell phone charger should soon become a thing of the past. Cell phone makers have agreed to come up with a universal adaptor. Julie Grant reports that that could save tons of landfill space:
Top cell phone makers – including Nokia, Samsung and Apple – have struck a deal to standardize handset chargers for European consumers by next year.
And the U.S. wireless industry association says Americans will likely see a universal charger before 2012.
That means when you buy a new phone, you won’t need to buy a new charger. You’ll be able keep using the one-size-fits-all charger.
Ted Scardamalia is with the technology analysis firm Portelligent. He says this is good for consumers – and the environment.
“If I have a charger that lasts for two or three or four phones, that’s two or three or four chargers I don’t have to recycle or put into a landfill.”
Last year, an estimated 1.2 billion cell phones were sold worldwide, according to University of Southern Queensland data reported by industry umbrella group GSMA (Groupe Speciale Mobile Association), generating up to 82,000 tonnes of chargers.
With concerns over the level of waste generated by redundant or outmoded chargers, European legislators had, prior to Monday’s agreement, considered forcing manufacturers to adopt universal technology.
Molycorp's rare-earth mining pit in Mountain Pass, California. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
To cut water use, Molycorp's installed new waste water ponds and
recycling equipment. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Beneath this 60-acre spot are 100 feet of mine tailings, which
include salts and other mining by-products. The site's being remediated and
capped with vegetation, to ensure water doesn't move contaminants underground.
It's part of Molycorp's plan to recover from waste water leaks during the 1990s. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Politicians like to show off pictures of wind turbines, hybrid cars, and other green hi-tech.
The idea is to get more of that in America, and maybe even make more of it here. Shawn
Allee found there’s a chance all of this could be complicated by the supply of key green-
tech ingredients:
Transcript
Politicians like to show off pictures of wind turbines, hybrid cars, and other green hi-tech.
The idea is to get more of that in America, and maybe even make more of it here. Shawn
Allee found there’s a chance all of this could be complicated by the supply of key green-
tech ingredients:
I don’t know about you, but there’re a whole bunch of minerals I completely ignored in
high school chemistry.
Jack Lifton knows them by heart.
“… lanthenum, serium, neodymium…”
Lifton’s a market expert on these so-called ‘rare-earth’ minerals. And he says, even if you
haven’t heard of them, you might have them – even in your pocket.
“Without rare earths, we probably would not have portable computers and you
certainly wouldn’t have display screens today on anything – television or computer,
iPod, or iPhone, whatever.”
Rare earths make electronics light and they don’t need much power: just what wind
turbines and electric hybrid cars need.
There’s a problem in the rare-earth market, though. China’s the big supplier, but Lifton
says it might keep it’s rare-earth supplies for itself.
“In the next three or four years, you cannot make a device with a rare earth unless
it’s made in China and then the Chinese have made it very clear that their priorities
are to manufacture goods for their own consumer economy and keep the Chinese
employed.”
So, is the US gonna be left dry when it comes to green high tech? Well, there is a rare
earth mine in America, but it’s had some environmental problems.
The mine is trying to turn that around now.
Honan: “On the left is the overburden stock pile. Once you’ve seen one of those,
you’ve seen them all.”
Allee: “Big pile of rocks.”
Honan: “Big pile of rock.”
Mine manager Scott Honan’s driving me around the top of a mine in the middle of the
California desert.
He manages the mine for Molycorp. Honan’s showing me the mine’s waste water
ponds.
Honan: “Those two are fresh water.”
Allee: “Basically, you’re trying to recycle as much of this water as you can. Why is
that?”
Honan: “We have to confine all of our water activities on the site. We have to be
very efficient when we use water, we can’t afford to waste it.”
Gotta admit, this is not very sexy stuff, but Molycorp is crossing its fingers that
expensive water recycling and treatment investments pay off.
Molycorp uses water to process the rare-earth ore, and back in the 90s, the mining and
processing stopped for a while due to waste water leaks.
It’s desert, after all – and regulators didn’t want what little water there is contaminated by
a slurry of salts and mining byproducts.
Allee: “So where’re we heading, here?”
Honan: “The pit.”
Allee: “Is that what everyone calls it? ‘The Pit?’”
Honan: “Yeah. It’s about 55 acres if you look at the perimeter. From the top of the
high wall over there to the bottom, it’s about 500 feet.”
Honan says Molycorp will expand the mine in a few years – just in time for when China
might stop exporting rare-earths.
The company might be jumping a tad – regulators might clamp down on the operation if
Molycorp repeats some of its past water pollution mistakes.
Still…
“I think a lot of us at the mine have a big stake in the success of this operation going
forward. A lot of us feel it’s important for our country. What we produce here is
going to drive a lot of this energy efficient technology that people are anxious about.
It’s cool to be a part of that.”
And for Honan, what’s even cooler is that someone’s talking about building a wind farm
not too far from his mine.
Honan says it’d be awefully nice if his rare-earths are in those turbines.
Recellular employee Myron Woods tests phones
to see if they can be resold or re-used. Here, he's got a
Nokia 6019, the model reporter Shawn Allee dropped off for
recycling. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Mark Glavin's shop in Franklin Park, Illinois
is part of sims Recycling solutions. Glavin's machines and
furnaces recover gold, silver and other metals from phones
that Recellular can't find a market for. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Michigan-based Recellular sorts through millions
of used cell phones, hoping to find ones that can be resold
for secondary phone markets, including those overseas. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
Sims Recycling turns bins of cells phones into
inch-sized chunks that can be further processed for recycling. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
It’s pretty clear Americans like their cell phones. On average, we get a new one about every
eighteen months. And yet, we hold on to the old ones, too; the government estimates there’re
about one hundred million lying around in closets and drawers. Shawn Allee found people eager
to take your old phones – if only you’d recycle them:
Transcript
It’s pretty clear Americans like their cell phones. On average, we get a new one about every
eighteen months. And yet, we hold on to the old ones, too; the government estimates there’re
about one hundred million lying around in closets and drawers. Shawn Allee found people eager
to take your old phones – if only you’d recycle them:
I put an old phone in a recycling box a while ago.
I checked around and found it went to one of the nation’s largest phone refurbishers.
It’s a company called Recellular. And it’s based in an old auto parts plant in Dexter, Michigan.
“It’s a big open space with a lot of room to handle the 20,000 phones that come in every day.
You need a lot of benches, you need a lot of cubby holes.”
Vice President Mike Newman points to some incoming collection boxes.
“Every box is a mystery. You have no idea what’s in there until you open it up and start
sorting it out.”
Newman’s company is hunting for working phones to resell here or overseas. Before that, his
people sort and test every model of phone.
And workers like Myron Woods remove personal data.
“Contacts, the voice mails, the ringtones, text messages. Hit OK and the phone’s cleared
out. After that you make sure the phone calls out. You get a ringtone, you hear the
operator, and then you’re done.”
Newman: “In 2008 we processed almost 6 million phones and for 2009, we’re looking at
more than double-digit growth again.”
And of those six million phones, Mike Newman says he can sell about half of them. He’d do
better if people like me didn’t keep phones in drawers for so long.
“The longer you wait, the less value it has so, if you move down from that old phone, as
hard as it might be to part with it, it’s really important to recycle it as soon as possible – it
will do the most good.”
What about Newman’s other phones – the duds? He has a different company near Chicago
recycle them.
Allee: “And here they are … holy mackerel.”
I’m now at Simms Recycling Solutions. A conveyer belt is moving thousands of phones.
“There’s the end of the line for your cell phones.”
Mark Glavin is the VP of operations here. He says there’s gold, silver, and other metals in the
phones he gets from Recellular.
“The cell phones get shredded into somewhat uniform-sized pieces.”
Glavin sticks the pieces in an oven to burn off the plastic – and then grinds what’s left.
Glavin: “That’s what’s left of the cell phones.”
Allee: “It’s almost like the powder you use for a baby, except its black.”
Glavin: “Yes.”
Glavin says there’s gold and other metal in the powder – so metal companies will buy it.
He also has stubborn chunks of metal that won’t grind.
“Those get pulled off and then those go to the furnace room to be melted.”
Glavin: “This is appropriately named the furnace room, where all the melting goes on. It
gets nice and toasty in here in the winter time.”
Allee: “Wow, what are we seeing here?”
Glavin: “After the material has been melted, we’ll cast it into molds and into 30-40 pound
ingots.”
He’ll sell metal from these ingots along with that black powder.
Recellular and Glavin’s company recovers about 96 pounds of gold from its phones each year.
Plus, that gold’s worth more than a million dollars. And recycling saves energy, and prevents
pollution from gold mining.
Glavin says recycling is taking off, and he can always count on people wanting the latest and
greatest phones.
Glavin: “Pretty soon your cell phone will be a chip like, on an ear-ring and a watch, and
there’s nothing to it except for a very tiny electronic.”
Allee: “And people will still swap it for the next one.”
The US Postal Service is beginning an e-waste recycling program through the mail (Photo courtesy of the USPS)
Many of us just don’t know what to do
with that old cell phone or outdated digital
camera. While some companies take the devices
back, not all do. Now, the US Postal Service
says it’s coming to the rescue. Mark Brush
reports – the post office is developing a free
electronics recycling program:
Transcript
Many of us just don’t know what to do
with that old cell phone or outdated digital
camera. While some companies take the devices
back, not all do. Now, the US Postal Service
says it’s coming to the rescue. Mark Brush
reports – the post office is developing a free
electronics recycling program:
Throwing out an old electronic device is wrong for several reasons. The devices can
contain toxic heavy metals which can pollute the environment. And there are many parts
that can be reused.
The US Postal Service is piloting a recycling program in some big cities across the
country – including Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington D.C.
They’re giving people
free, postage-paid envelopes. You can stuff your old cell phone or mp3 player into the
envelope and drop it in the mail.
It’s delivered to a recycling company called Clover Technologies Group. The company
says it tries to refurbish and resell what it can. If the device can’t be resold, it’s broken
down, and the materials that can be are recycled. The other stuff is thrown in a landfill.
Critics say while these recycling programs are a good first step, the companies who
make these devices should design them so all the parts can be reused.
Scientists have found that millions of birds are killed each year when they crash into communication towers. Now officials at the Federal Communications Commission are thinking about making companies change the way they build the towers. Mark Brush has more:
Transcript
Scientists have found that millions of birds are killed each year when they crash into communication towers. Now officials at the Federal Communications Commission are thinking about making companies change the way they build the towers. Mark Brush has more:
The explosion of cell phones has meant an explosion of new communication towers, but when these towers are built using guy wires, and use traditional lighting systems, they can end up really hurting bird populations.
Steve Holmer is with the American Bird Conservancy. He says the steady red lights on these towers can confuse birds that use stars to migrate at night.
“The birds are actually attracted to these towers, kind of like a moth to the flame, and will actually circle around them and strike the towers, or strike the guide wires, or actually just keep circling until they exhaust themselves.”
Holmer says that simply replacing these lights with white strobe lights would help a lot.
The FCC will be seeking public comments on whether or not they should require that new communication towers be bird friendly.
The Good Guide website's turkey rating page. (Image by Jessi Ziegler)
